Match Race?

The splitting of the Grand Heritage and switch of venue from the Vaal to Turffontein on Saturday has meant that we now have two tricky R500 000 races, the winners of which could face each other in a match race some time in December.

Match races captured the public imagination in the 20th century and the most famous one of all time – between Northern Princess and Senor Santa at Greyville in 1989 - was sponsored by Winning Form.

Whats your thoughts on a "match race" ?
I really enjoy the concept and was fortunate to be very close to the connections of Divine Act vs Brainteaser when they met , it was a brilliant build up and day.

I would add that it has always been generated between two champions or potential champs but in this case possibly 2 x 20/1 shots that might clash and might not have the same draw card than the traditional concept was based on ?

However we certainly need some innovative thinking in racing and again well done to the sponsors of trying to recover and difficult situation after the disruption.

Perhaps I am showing provincialism in stating that I disagree that the most famous match race was Senor Santa / Northern Princess. As a younger man I was present at Gosforth Park for the Divine Act / Brainteaser match race and the track was filled to the rafters because of this. I recall that the build up to this race included front page news in some of the local dailies. If memory serves me, there were over 35000 fans that watched the Cliffie Otto machine destroy the Michael Azzie trained Brainteaser. I had fallen victim of the Azzie hype and had a nice double running into the 7/10 Brainteaser. He never stood a chance. This matchrace is a great concept but I agree with Dave, the winners of two inconsequential races will not be the answer to capturing the publics imagination.

Has the operator thought that perhaps the connections of either winner may actually not wish to run in this race as
they might actually have Group Entries in mind -
dont know when this planned race is programmed for but to be fair on the sponsors I would have thought Summer Cup day would help to ease the pain of the disaster.... If this is the case you could find that one of the winners may want to race in a Feature on that day - What then? Give a runner up a place in the "match race"?

The first 2 paragraphs were sent by HW i just added my comments

D

I would add that a match race is only a consideration at this stage and felt it would be a good topic for discussion.

Match races are cool if we have jocks good enough to ride in them

You might have a point Bob but when Divine beat the Brain charles van booma rode Divine and the brain had strydom, so the horse also plays a major role lol

Ps i understand what u mean but over a sprint probably a lessor factor

My memory fails me (blame it on the loss of memory cells over the years!) BUT I think Greyville/Clairwood? also staged a sprint match race.. maybe mistaken as well..

Any confirmation!

Greyville = Senor Santa versus Northern Princess won by Northern Princess
Clairwood = High Profile versus Eldoriza won by Eldoriza

The connections of Senor Santa were aggrieved because the authorities eliminated Senor Santa from the Germiston November, then a prestigious race, on the grounds that Santa Santa was only a sprinter. The connections of Northern Princess, the eventual winner of the November, agreed to a match race sponsored one third by each party and Winning Form. The match race was well marketed by Winning Form - "Coming to you this Christmas, the Santa and the Princess".

naresh wrote: Greyville = Senor Santa versus Northern Princess won by Northern Princess
Clairwood = High Profile versus Eldoriza won by Eldoriza

Thanks Naresh

remember that race vividly

In my memory the less fancied horse has won the match races in more cases than the fav